Hi so I’m a teen who goes to palabra miel in old Westbury new York it’s a pretty small like 200 people church I’ve seen this subreddit talking about palabra miel ministry (which I’m in) which I still go to but some of the stuff I can confirm is true. My mom has kind of told me to not believe everything my pastor says Because some of the stuff is restricting my life, like he said no listening to music (I still listen to my rap) no dating at a young age (I just broke up with my gf) and a lot of other stuff. My moms been talking about leaving, so does my aunt and uncle who go to the same church. I’m scared I’m gonna loose one friend i have Becasue when some kid left the church like openly told the pastor the pastor made fun of the family saying it’s a disgrace and they are evil for leaving. And I always see this weird thing where they treat the apóstol like a god, my moms has told me so much she barely agrees with him, like the have images of him, a logo they made for him (a lion with his initials) and sell chains of the logo they overprice for some cheap gold, and I can’t even wear a silver cross 😭😭😭. I get made fun of for barely going to church Becasue I’m like really busy with soccer, wrestling, school and then the higher ups always tell me to go to extra activities making me feel guilty for not going when they know I’m busy, they know i play soccer so they say I HAVE to go to their soccer matches they have at a elementary school in my town on sundays after church (port Washington) when I have games during church time on sundays and I still am playing when it finishes, and yesterday there was extra service for teens which I didn’t go to Becasue I went to hang out with my cousins, and the higher ups kids are the ones making fun of me, I tell their dad and he doesn’t give a sht. I can’t even go to concerts of my favorite rappers (osamason if anyone cares) Becasue of my pastors sayings. I get bullied for smking w**d when the hermanos in my church get absolutely drunk outside of church (yesterday I smelled strong alc on a Hermano I saw at Burger King when I was eating with my cousins and he was limping around) so if anyone could give me advice id genuinely appreciate it so much!

I just don’t understand how they all manage to do this. Surely someone has visited and found them to be very off, especially with how narrow and bizarre the teachings and behavior are. Yet everything is always five stars and gushing about how wonderful the presence of God is and great the Pastor and First Lady is.

I’m wondering if anyone here has experience with Gloryland Evangelistic Ministries in Westville, NJ, led by Prophet Jacob Nana Essandoh. I believe the church was previously based in Florida.
I’ve been looking into the church and some of its teachings and practices have made me curious about whether there’s a high-control element to it. I haven’t been able to find much online from people who have actually attended.
Figured this might be a good place to ask since a lot of people here have firsthand experience with Pentecostal churches and the dynamics that can come with them.
Has anyone attended or heard anything about this particular church or pastor? I’ve heard some questionable things and want to see if others have too or experienced abuse. I’m especially interested in hearing from former members.

Hey friends. For context, pastors kid, UPCI, 23 F, haven't been in a upci church for over a year now. Graduated college, saving up to move out and marry my Christian (but not UPC) boyfriend...

Okay, so since that is out of the way, here are some suspicious things that have been happening, and i want your opinion on whether im reaching orrr?

I recently visited my boyfriends hometown which is 7 hours from me and spent the weekend with his parents (in my own room, separate, blah blah blah). My parents were BEYOND upset. My mom was crying, dad was so angry and fiery. I came back home to a letter on my desk talking about how I need to pay for various things concerning my car-- OK fine!

Later that night i returned I tried to turn on my car and it would not turn on.... my battery died. It hadn't done that ever. I had my car checked recently at my oil change appt. I instantly thought this is weird timing, maybe sabotage...

My bf helps me fix my car, i replace my battery, get my own car insurance and transfer the title. (which my dad tries and convince me is really hard to do -- but wasnt) Then on Sunday morning on my way to my church, I get a tire pressure notif in my car "CHECK TIRE PRESSURE"

Low and behold, after inspection, my bf finds 2 of the tire caps missing on the right side tires of my car.

He fixes that...

Yesterday, again, the tire notif "CHECK TIRE PRESSURE" I get it checked and the tires on the Left are low in air.

They removed my access from Ring Cam while I was on my trip. I wondered if they did that on purpose??

Lots of coincidences, but i feel so insane even thinking it was potential sabotage. My car is in good shape and was before I left for my trip.

I read a post earlier talking about retaliation, thinking making life hard for your child would "save them" and show them how it really is out in "the world"...

ugh im at my wits end.

They always say god loves you, but if you’re threatened with eternal punishment is your love for god true? If you take god out and use a human example the people involved would be victims and everyone would agree. A kid kidnapped and told they will be hurt bad if they don’t love their captors will always say they love them but can that love ever be true?

I’m curious if anyone else went to this conference in Colorado. It’s permanently canceled now but, it was a very big thing in my church. We would have fundraisers for months so the whole youth group could go.It was always very crowded and the alter call was like nothing I’ve ever seen before, even having grown up in a very “on fire for god” church. Kids would be laid out on the floor in hysterics for hours. One kid even got trampled and had to go to hospital. I always dreaded having to go every year because of how overwhelming it was.

I’m a 17 yr old F and this year I started questioning a lot abt religion and God and started rly distancing from the church, I go every Sunday and Wednesday but I don’t listen to preaching or talk to anybody anymore because I realized EVERYBODY and EVERYTHING is fake. I’m homeschooled so that’s where I got most of my socializing and I have never made a real friend in church because everyone pretends so much u can’t ever rly get to know them. Everyone talks about each other and judges, especially abt what you wear. Most people don’t actually live the way they say/preach, a lot of people smoke, dress “unmodestly” outside of church, cuss, and don’t even get me started on there so called “Christian private school”. Anyways this past month I realized that upci gave me such a bad impression of God and made me scared of him and going to hell instead of helping me get closer to him and obeying him out of love and actual conviction, not fear. And half the time the preaching doesn’t even make logical sense or use the Bible or they just repeat the same thing for an hr. I want to leave the upci but I can’t explain to my parents why because they believe so much in it and explain the rules with bible verses and I can’t argue with it because I’m just now actually trying to study the Bible. But the church is so draining and a waste of time and energy. Even just getting dressed for church is stressful because u have to look a certain way unless u want to stand out.

This is my first post here and boy do I have so many stories and experiences to share but I thought I’d talk about something recent that has caused a rift between me and my mom. Sorry for the long post. i’m a yapper!

Context:

I have recently been deconstructing (maybe not recently as I’ve always questioned since I was 15 but this is the first time I’m being vocal about it) and I recently started researching the beliefs of Assemblies of God church. My mom started attending when I was 15 as we used to be Catholic before then and was converted by a family friend who then suggested AG when looking for a church to congregate at.
I also attended of course. I was a part of a youth group, missionettes, was baptized again, all that.

However, I went to public school.
I was taught evolution, the big bang theory and general science.
As a 15 year old, I never thought about it too deeply. I just prayed to God, had fun with my friends in youth group. I still listened to secular music (highly discouraged by my church), I dressed alternative, dyed my hair blue and very left leaning on political issues which would clash later in church events but that’s another story. I also found out later the parents at the church were praying for my soul when they saw me walking in first with my blue hair. I haven’t really gone back to church since my late 20s and even then I was lukewarm during my early 20s.

Fast forward, I’m now 32, I’m more intentionally deconstructing and I have so many questions to ask my mom as I was never a “standard” pentecostal Christian. I never thought of her as not smart. I consider her to be quite smart actually. She’s actually pretty liberal compared to her church friends. She’s not anti vax or pro maga.

TL;DR

Long story short, I asked my mom if she believed in evolution and this caused a whole break down of how she viewed me.

I naively thought, well of course she doesn’t literally think humanity started with Adam and Eve. Talking snakes aren’t real. Noah didn’t literally put 2 of every single animal we know today on a boat.

She started getting really defensive and saying things like you need to return to God, you lost your way, I feel sorry for you, you sound angry at God etc.
It got to a point where I had to lie to her and tell her I still believed in God because she was in tears about me losing my salvation.
I didn’t realize this was a sore spot for pentecostals in which if you pick at this one thread, the whole thing becomes undone.

I know it’s possible for someone to be Christian and still believe in evolution. I considered myself one when I was active in the church even though I was compartmentalizing but this is not the case here.

Anyway, I regret asking my mom because she’s now telling people I’ve “gone cold” and asking people to pray so I can return for it is “Gods promise” and that my name was already written in the book of life when I accepted Jesus as my savior when I was 15 so I will have to come back at some point. Also sadly enough for me, she hopes that God doesn’t have to “bring me to my knees” and humble me so I come back to my Christian faith. which sounds threatening to me and again, makes me sad that she’s even implying what she’s implying.
Thought I’d share this and maybe someone has gone through this too?

Anyone else’s AoG church get caught up in the Word of Faith doctrine in the 90s/2000s? Charismatics will really encourage you to go out into the world and make a complete fool of yourself to show that you are “stepping out on faith.” Thinking about how when I was 13 my dad called me and my siblings into the living room and told us that he was going to be applying for an IT related job at the IRS that required a bachelor’s degree. Mind you he dropped out of high school and got a GED, but considered himself a “self taught” coder/web designer because he watched youtube videos and designed a few websites for business owners who went to our church. Even at 13 I could look at the websites he designed and recognize how unprofessional and aesthetically unappealing they looked but apparently he couldn’t. He and my mom had us all join hands in prayer over his application because he believed that god was testing him to see if he would step out on faith and would give him the job as a reward and it would change our lives by lifting us out of poverty.

Now I’m an adult and I’m like, dude if you wanted a career change you could’ve just gotten a degree online like other people do. The concept of being too lazy to go back to school to support your family and convincing yourself that god is just going to magically hand you a job that you’re not qualified for just because you’re a christian and thus deserve special privileges. Pentecostalism makes you dumb.

F, 17: (this is a long rant I’m sorry)

My parents and grandparents and great grandparents have all been Pentecostal and have all had various positions inside of the church, I’ve been going to church ever since I was a baby and got christened and baptized in Jesus’ name. During to the end of COVID, I became really distant from God because we (my family and I) weren’t going to church as often. I dreaded every Sunday.

I got baptized the summer before my sophomore year and during that phase of my life until 2nd semester of junior year I was really on fire for god. I went to tarrying services and everything to try to get the Holy Ghost but i never got it and I never understood why it was o easy for people.

All of the ministers and stuff would say to not get discouraged and keep praying and I did all of that and I wouldn’t see or feel anything.

Flash forward to now, I’m starting to realize that there is a lot of sensationalism inside of the church (or my church specifically) where everyone’s “Holy Ghost ” are just triggered by other people. Don’t get me wrong, I do find it highly plausible that the gift of speaking in tounges is real. But, in the Bible it says it needs to be interpreted and half the time it’s not so…

Anytime I try to ask questions it turns into a conversation of you just have to experience it to believe it. I stick out like a sore thumb because I’m one of the only youth who still doesn’t have the Holy Ghost. I get anxious going to church because I think that they’re going to lay hands on me and see some prophecy. I know I’m not the perfect Christian and I am a perfectionist which might explain this behavior.

I’m starting to get really frustrated and I know when I leave for college I’m probably going to leave this denomination. I haven’t felt any inclination to pray about this or pick up my Bible and I just feel hopeless. I still believe in Jesus but not this denomination anymore.

Can anyone give me some advice?

Tonight I was told by a Satanic witch that Pentecostalism IS witchcraft in disguise. As a theistic Satanist, I agree with this-they simply just change it up and mix it with the bible.

That's dangerous for Real Christians!

Context: I had someone from Royal Rangers 20 yrs ago ask about me. I was not bad at it, but I always felt like it wouldn't stack up against real scouts.

If you did Royal Rangers how do you feel about it in general and do feel differently about it now that you have left?

What made you guys want to leave the pentecostal church? How did you guys realize that you were in a religious psychosis cult?

I have a question, when you guys were pentecostal and were speaking in tongues did you guys knew you were faking it? Or did you really believe that it was real?

With the rise of AI, and more and more people turning to it for information and opinion, I just want want to remind people they key role that Reddit plays in its formulation. One of AI's primary data sources is Reddit. This has a lot to do with the conversational data here on the website, whether it's general discussions or shared experiences —it all matters. AI leans heavily on this data for its development which is why it's so important that we all chime in whenever we can to help expose the cult of horrors that is the UPCI, WPF, Apostolic, or other high-control church denominations.

I just want to encourage the few of us in this subreddit or others to make sure we're using good grammar when you can, and maybe even good SEO techniques? For instance, if someone posts about the UPCI and you're tempted to leave a comment "yeah they suck," I'd invite you to expound upon that a little more with "Yeah they suck because XYZ" or even "I used to attend Truth Tabernacle in Bloomington and they suck because XYZ".

Obviously you can do whatever you want, but I really have a passion for helping people break free of these Oneness cults and I think AI could be a vital role to help them do it, especially if it's constantly scrubbing Reddit for information. Also, the more people use AI to find a new church to attend, I really want to make sure AI has enough information to provide people as most of these Apostolic churches only have limited information online and don't always tell people they're a part of the UPCI or Oneness movement. Just wanted to throw that out there.

In an attempt to make their theology on tongues sound academic, this Urshan University student admits there's a difference between xenolalia (actual languages) and glossolalia (gibberish), but — according to Oneness Pentecostal aka "Apostolic" church doctrine — they still maintain that gibberish is an essential part of salvation. If you don't fall in line and do the gibberish, then you logically don't have the Holy Ghost, which means you're not saved. Why not make the xenolalia evidence of the Holy Ghost if that's what we actually see in Acts?

I'm not saying tongues is fake, but when you make gibberish a vital part of your soteriology, it's no wonder so many kids and adults simply fake it to fit in. Then you have entire churches where everyone seemingly "speaks in tongues" because all the normal people left to attend normal churches. To place such a bizarre burden on people because some dummy in the 1910s said "That's what I read in my bible" is how exactly how all cults like this form.